The Great Parenting Debates

Despite media fondness for reports of hyper- and helicopter parenting, most if not all parents are NOT "too involved" with their kids. While some kinds of parental involvement with kids are better than others, say researchers, any kind of involvement is better than none at all.

Have you ever had to fight the urge to do your child’s homework or complete a project for him? At the recent Learning & the Brain Conference in Cambridge, Mass., my coauthor Wendy Grolnick talked about the natural human urge to shield our young from emotional, social, and psychological pain. When parents face certain pressures, however, that Read More

Andre Agassi hated tennis? That’s the surprise in his new autobiography Open, but the surprise evaporates when you read why: Agassi didn’t choose to play tennis. He felt forced to play. His immigrant dad wanted his son to live the American dream, to have the life choices he’d not had himself, Read More

Here's an excellent article on Pressured Parents, Stressed-out Kids: Grolnick to Discuss Pressure, Stress It's angled around an announcement of Wendy's next talk on our book, but the amazing feature of this article is that it seems Read More

The economic crisis is adding to the pressures on parents today. Getting together college money is even harder than before. That can ratchet up our worry about how our kids are doing in school, because it seems even more important for them to get good grades and perhaps a scholarship. And it seems all the more Read More

There's a very good article on kids and competition in the Oct. 17th Family Circle, also on Parents.com. Cynthia Hanson writes that kids' lives are more competitive these days partly because of TV shows like American Idol, and America's Next Top Model. "We have a whole generation of kids who fear they're going Read More